BOYS BASKETBALL: Lawrenceville runs away from Hill School

POTTSTOWN — The first two minutes of Wednesday’s game belonged to The Hill School.

The remaining 30? They came under solid ownership of Lawrenceville School. And that pretty much told the story of the 59-34 victory the Larries claimed over their longtime archrivals at the Hill’s Gillison Gymnasium.

After the Blues bolted to a six-point lead in the first 38 seconds, on 3-point baskets by Joe Pucci and Grant Smith, Lawrenceville took control just ahead of the six-minute mark. It rang up nine unanswered points in a 2:24 span and was never topped the rest of the way, turning this Mid-Atlantic Prep League clash into a runaway.

“We got a couple open looks to start the game,” Hill head coach Seth Eilberg said, “but then they tightened defensively.”

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The same could be said for the visitors’ offense, which got double-figure scoring from a trio of players once it got untracked. Roy Brooks got four on a pair of putback baskets, Charlie Card-Childers banked home another and Sam Borst-Smith buried the first of his 3-point buckets at the 3:42 mark.

With that, the Larries (2-0 MAPL, 11-2 overall) were on their way to a 14-11 first-quarter advantage that ballooned to 29-15 at the half. They took a 48-23 lead into the break-even fourth, where both teams had 11 points while clearing their benches down the stretch.

“They came out with those two ‘threes,’ but we took that early punch and came up with some good possessions,” Lawrenceville head coach Ron Kane said. “I was proud of our effort. It was a good road win for us.”

It was a game of streaks for the visitors — three of them, each one topping the previous one. Lawrenceville rang up 10 successive points in the second quarter, then ran off 14 in the third for their biggest (43-17) lead of the afternoon.

The Hill (0-2, 6-7) mustered only three runs of back-to-back baskets after the initial one — all of them coming in the fourth. It used one of them to get Lawrenceville’s lead down to an even 20 at the start of the final stanza, only to see the New Jersey school answer with seven straight points in little more than 1-1/2 minutes.

“You can’t give their shooters open shots,” Eilberg said, “and they made open shots. We didn’t make it easy on ourselves with our turnovers, and when we got open looks, we didn’t knock the shots down.”

The Larries had it over their hosts in several statistical categories.

Their 44.2 percent (23-for-52) field-goal accuracy outstripped the Blues’ 32.4 percent (12-for-27), and their trio of double-figure scorers — Borst-Smith with 17, Brooks with 12, Lewis Hayes with 10 — contrasted with the Hill’s scoring leaders Grant Smith (eight) and Adam Regensburg (seven). They held a 38-18 edge off the glass, and a slight advantage in forced turnovers (16-14).

“Our coaches said we passed well,” Kane said. “That’s the thing ... we passed well and have good senior leadership.

“We’re an unselfish team. Tonight we played well.”

And while Lawrenceville had more foul issues than the Hill, the locals managed to convert only four of their 11 tries. The visitors, by comparison, were a clean 4-for-4.

“We hit a wall there,” Eilberg said of the Hill’s second straight MAPL loss in the wake of a season-best three-game win streak. “Now we have to get our second wind. This is the first time I feel we were outworked. When you don’t compete, it’s a recipe for this kind of result.”

NOTES

The Hill players’ uniforms sport a black circle with the letters “RBN” on them. Eilberg said it’s a tribute to Richard B. Nocella, a former Hill assistant coach who passed away two years ago.